Page 76 - The Arabian Gulf States_Neat

! 14 THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE ARABIAN GULF STATES
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of the Ruler, who is also the Chief of Police and Public Security
Department. The President of the Health Council is Shaikh Mubarak,
one of the Ruler’s uncles. It is clear that none of these councils, which
' I have been established since 1956, could be considered as a representa­
tive body in a real democratic sense.1 Moreover, judged by their per­
1
formance during the last decade or so, the contribution of such
councils towards the welfare and progressive development of the
country has been negligible.
The Judicial system: in Bahrain and Qatar the local courts exercise
1 jurisdiction over Bahraini and Qatari subjects and nationals of all
Arab and Muslim States, with the exception of Muslim nationals of
Commonwealth countries. British subjects and nationals of non-
Muslim and Commonwealth States are subject to the British system
of jurisdiction which is exercised by the British courts established in
:

al-Adhwathe only recently licensed newspaper, criticises the Government’s
decision to extend, for an unspecified period of time, the term of service of the
members of municipal councils, despite the recommendations of the ‘specialised
1 British experts’ who were hired by the Government to advise it on implementing
administrative reforms. See al-Adhwa' (Bahrain), No. 14, 9 December 1965.
1 The educated and politically conscious class, which has, since 1954, been
agitating, both overtly and covertly, for fundamental constitutional reforms in the
country, is far from satisfied with the present ‘autocratic’ institutions which, in its
view, do not represent the true will of the people. There was between 1954-6 a
mature, reasonable and moderate political movement, the Committee of National
Union, which called on the late Ruler, Shaikh Salman Al-Khalifah, to implement
certain political and legal reforms in the archaic administration of the country.
However, in consequence of the riots which infested the city during the Suez war
in 1956, the Ruler succeeded, with the assistance of the locally based British troops,
in ruthlessly suppressing the C.N.U., whose leaders were brought to trial in
December 1956 on charges of treason, before a special tribunal composed of the
Ruler’s relatives. Although throughout the trial the accused pleaded their inno­
cence and refused to defend themselves against the ‘unproven’ charges unless they
were allowed to be represented by counsel, they were convicted on 23 December
1956. Three of the leaders, ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Baker and his friends, were five
days later transferred, with British assistance, to the British colony of St Helena to
serve their terms of fourteen-year imprisonment. During the four and a half years
of their detention in the colony the Bahraini prisoners contested the legality of their
imprisonment by applying for a writ of habeas corpus before British courts. After
at least one unsuccessful attempt, they finally succeeded in June 1961, in their
case before the Supreme Court of St Helena, when the presiding Judge, Mr
m Justice Abbott, ruled that the Bahraini prisoners were ‘unlawfully detained’. Sub­
sequently, on their release they were issued with special British passports, since
their Government had already deprived them of their Bahraini passports.
For detailed information on the political movement in Bahrain and the legal
consequences ensuing from the confinement of the Bahrainis in St Helena, see the
following: Bahrain Government, Annual Report, 1956; Owen, R., The Golden
Bubble (1957); The Spectator, London, 1 July 1960, 17 February, 16 June 1961;
House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates, col. 669, 7 March 1957; Persian Gulf
Gazette^ Suppl. No. 16, 1 April 1957; Abdul Rahman Al Baker v. Robert Edmund
Alford and Patrick Vincent True body, Privy Council Appeal, No. 43 of 1959. Judg-